Bloom where you're planted.

Leave a light on in the dark, maybe you'll guide somebody in. Someone to tell you who you are. Someone to carry who you've been. ~tg

Friday, October 06, 2006

“How does it feel, anyway?”“How does what feel?”“When you take one of those books?”At that moment, she chose to keep still. If he wanted an answer, he’d have to come back, and he did. “Well?” he asked, but again, it was the boy who replied, before Liesel could even open her mouth. “It feels good, doesn’t it? To steal something back.”

I finished reading the most beautiful book the other day, The Book Thief. I’m always amazed at how books can actually make my chest ache. I haven’t been touched by something this way since I read The Kite Runner. It’s about a young girl living close to Munich in Nazi Germany. It’s the story of her foster parents hiding a Jew in the basement, and it’s narrated by Death. I think part of what hit me so hard about this book is the way the girl discovers a new world through words, and through learning to read. I can still remember the day in Kindergarten at recess when they asked if I wanted to learn to read. Why even at age 5 I wanted to learn to read instead of play, I’ll never know but I guess some things never change. Anyway, the Book Thief is actually a young adult book, and one of the best I’ve probably ever read. The language is beautiful, the writing style is incredible. I loved it. It’s funny how some people can use words to create pictures in your head more defined and descriptive than you typically even see with your own eyes. It’s described as being ‘an unforgettable novel about the ability of books to feed the soul.’ I couldn’t put it any better myself. Read it. It changed the way I look at the world and the colors I see. It changed the way I think about humanity. And as crazy at it sounds, it changed the way I love.

‘Don’t make me happy. Please, don’t fill me up and make me think that something good can come of any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? Do you see it growing before your very eyes, eroding me? I don’t want to hope for anything anymore. I don’t want to pray that Max is alive and safe. Or Alex Steiner.